


Moonlight

by bexacaust



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 18:37:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6969484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexacaust/pseuds/bexacaust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The moon rises directly above the center of Vos.”, said Thundercracker from where he perused the shelves of datapads, “Younglings are told to look to the moon, Sky, because she will always lead you home.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonlight

_As the wolf waits below, **hungry** and **lonely**  
He cries to the **moon** , “If only, if **only.** ” _

Skywarp was so…. alone.

He wandered, aimless, having tagged along with a small quad of Seekers he had found. They weren’t lasting, fighting among themselves as they festered in hungry and dirty loneliness.

Skywarp had scraped the Decepticon brand from his body, discarded it haphazardly but even still, he stroked his servos over the gouges in his paint. And he dreamed. Oh, how he dreamed.

He was the youngest in the trine; the smallest as well. He longed to feel Thundercracker lift him without warning and hold him tightly until he whined about being embarrassed (when he never was, he loved feeling loved). He longed to rest his helm of the lap of a busy Starscream just to hear the soft murr and feel servos stroke over his helm.

He remembered the flight that led to him being welcomed into the trine.

He remembered the release of soaring high above thermals to where the air grew thin and the moon was so large; so bright…

He watched the moon and cut his thrusters and he remembered the freefall, he remembered the twist to his body that let the world orbit him slowly- the sound of wings slicing air and feeling of arms beneath him and so much blue.

He remembered being held close to a chestplate and he remembered the first time Starscream chirred to him as he hovered and they were alone in the cold clear sky and everything was suddenly right. The feeling of being chosen, of being wanted and loved and protected.

He remembered his position being challenged, his wing being clipped and fighting to fly. He remembered feeling his fellow Seekers, his trine, surround him and defend him.

Instinct took hold for a fleeting moment and he let off a trine call into the night. His traveling group had faded into recharge; one glance showed him only three would awaken in the morning.

He left the bolt-hole to stare at the softly glimmering moon… and with a kick, he was airborne once again. He needed his sky, he needed the clouds to hold him like no one would now, he needed the currents to lift his wings and chase away the longing in his spark.

Skywarp was so alone.

He drifted upon the thinner air, using the bare minimum to stay airborne. He let his optics leak coolant as he fell into the old flight patterns, the courting patterns, the trine formations and he trilled his loneliness in tones so saccharine they could be a song.

And he rose higher and higher until he was lit only by the moon; until the world was a million miles and cares away and he could almost touch the stars. And this little midnight Icarus cut his thrusters and hovered before he let himself go into freefall.

And he watched his moon before his optics closed and he prayed once again to be caught.

======================================

_Two figures sliced through the night, searching and scanning. One, a panicky and anxious politician and the other a world-worn playwright._

_Hours before, in a glittering palace, the playwright had approached the politician with a rumble of his voice asking a simple question._

_“What do you want, Starscream? I’ll not join you, or whatever cause it is you have nowadays.”  
_

_And Starscream had looked at him, optics dim and lost and had shaken his helm. And in a tinny, raspy voice, sounded the weakest trinecall that had ever been heard._

_“Thundercracker.”  
_

_And the playwright’s spark had cracked._

_“I don’t know how to say I am sorry anymore.”  
_

_And the playwright itched to let the other Seeker fall against him in weakness, in exhaustion._

_“I cannot do this anymore.”  
_

_And Thundercracker moved forward to take Starscream into stronger arms, against a sturdier frame and let his trinemate’s legs go weak as he clung in desperation. As Vosian tongues spilled from the Seeker whose wings went akimbo as he asked for forgiveness, as he begged for some kind of healing._

_“I need you both, I miss you both, come home to me I’ll do anything.”  
_

_Thundercracker could do nothing but nod, wings flicking once and settling against his back, “I have neglected my duties. To you. To him.”_

_“I have done far worse to you both.”  
_

_“It will take time, and effort, but I can forgive. But first… we need to find him.”  
_

_Starscream nodded, and within the hour they were fueled and gone, flitting into the dusk._

=======================================================

And now, they landed with a whirr of transformation to watch the artful glides and acrobatics of Skywarp, silhouetted against the moon.

“He flies for a trine.”, said Starscream mournfully, “Remember when he flew like that for us?”

“He still does.”, said Thundercracker, “And we will answer.”

They watched Skywarp wind into a turn and with the thud of pedes against the dusty and cold ground they took to the air.

Skywarp hiccuped a sob into the currents, his flight growing near desperate as it always did when he indulged this way, when he purged the grief from his frame with pleading to Primus the only way he could.

_The next drop, they will come._

_The next roll, they will be here._

_Please, Creator-God, let them come back to me, let me go **home.**_

With a sob and a desperate clack of heel thrusters knocking together, he rocketed the highest he had been this night. His sparkchamber faced the moon, his moon, and he let his wings tuck in close…

And he fell. He fell through the stardust and wispy cloudstuff. His wings slanted, and thin white slices through the sky followed his descent in a slow corkscrew. He reached for the moon before his optics shuttered and his body went limp.

If he could not go home, then he would just go. No more nights of tumbling artfully through the sky to never land in arms he missed…

His mouth opened and sounded his trinecall, just once more before he inevitably bowed out of the fall to exist another day. And then the world stop whistling past his audials. 

And he was warm.

His optics unshuttered with a start, to look up at so very much blue.

“TC?”

“Who else, Sky?”

A trill, and Skywarp’s helm turned to see Starscream’s wings and a delirious smile on his face.

“You’re here.”, whispered Skywarp.

“Always and forever.”, whispered Starscream, and those familiar servos traced Skywarp’s helm as he was cradled in Thundercracker’s arms.

Skywarp trembled, emotion welling up in his soul. All those prayers, all those wishes and all those nights drifting and calling out for home…

He hiccuped once, twice, and let his optics drip. He felt Thundercracker’s frame rumble with his voice, he heard the wispy tones of Starscream. They called out to him and he answered.

He answered, and looked to the moon with a smile before burying his face against Thundercracker. And he remembered…

_“All young Seekers, when they begin to fly, “, Starscream began an age ago, “Are told to let the moon guide them. Do you know why?”_

_“No.”, answered Skywarp.  
_

_“The moon rises directly above the center of Vos.”, said Thundercracker from where he perused the shelves of datapads, “Younglings are told to look to the moon, Sky, because she will always lead you home.”_

Skywarp looked once again to the wide opalescent mass in the sky, and whispered, “Thank you.”

“Thank you for bringing me **home.** ”


End file.
